The Landfill Harmonic Orchestra - The Recycled Orchestra

 

 

 

Cateura, Paraguay is a town essentially built on top of a landfill. Garbage collectors browse the trash for sellable goods, and children are often at risk of getting involved with drugs and gangs. When music teacher Fabio set up a music program for the kids of Cateura, they soon have more students than they have instruments.

That changed when Szaran and Fabio were brought something they had never seen before: a violin made out of garbage. Today, there’s an entire orchestra of assembled instruments, now called The Recycled Orchestra.

Our film shows how trash and recycled materials can be transformed into beautiful sounding musical instruments, but more importantly, it brings witness to the transformation of precious human beings.

More information: https://www.facebook.com/landfillharmonicmovie?fref=ts
Kickstarter project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/405192963/landfill-harmonic-inspiring-dreams-one-note-at-a-t

 

http://www.richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2013/6/4/the-landfill-harmonic-orchestra-youtube# 

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Employees at a Foxconn factory in China: the company is among the biggest users of student labour in the country. Photograph: Darley Shen/Reuters

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Children growing up will struggle to achieve the same living standards as their parents. Photograph:

 Photononstop/Alamy

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Peter Higgs smiles after being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics at a press conference at the University of 

Edinburgh Photo: GETTY 

By Richard Gray, Science correspondent

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"You can't shake hands with a clenched fist."

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George Monbiot

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"Instead of being encouraged to observe and explore and think and develop, children are 

being treated like geese in a foie gras farm" Illustration by Belle Meller.

 

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Ofsted is currently undertaking a two-day inspection of the Al-Madinah school. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

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Is the development of students as individuals getting lost in the exam conveyor belt? Photograph: Aly Song/REUTERS

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